Saturday, March 16, 2013

A message from Zero Hedge

Comment: Depositors have been ripped off to pay for bailout as Cyprus' banks need to be rescued.

Published on Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com)

Europe Does It Again: Cyprus Depositor Haircut "Bailout" Turns Into Saver "Panic", Frozen Assets, Bank Runs, Broken ATMs

By Tyler Durden

Created 03/16/2013 - 10:33

[1]Europe has done it again.
Late last night, after markets closed for the weekend, following an extended discussion the European finance ministers announced their "bailout" solution for Russian oligarch depositor-haven Cyprus: a €13 billion bailout (Europe's fifth) with a huge twist: the implementation of what has been the biggest taboo in European bailouts to date - the impairment of depositors, and a fresh, full blown escalation in the status quo's war against savers everywhere. Specifically, Cyprus will impose a levy of 6.75% on deposits of less than €100,000 - the ceiling for European Union account insurance, which is now effectively gone following this case study - and 9.9% above that. The measures will raise €5.8 billion, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who leads the group of euro-area ministers, said. But it doesn't stop there: a partial "bail-in" of junior bondholders is also possible, as for the first time ever the entire liability structure of a European bank - even if it is a Cypriot bank - is open season for impairments. The logical question: why here, and why now? And what happens when the Cypriot bank run that has taken the country by storm this morning spreads everywhere else, now that the scab over Europe's biggest festering wound is torn throughout the periphery as all the other PIIGS realize they too are expendable on the altar of mollifying voters and investors in the other countries that make up Europe's disunion.

Source URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-16/europe-does-it-again-cyprus-depositor-haircut-bailout-turns-saver-panic-bank-runs-br

Links:
[1] http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2013/03/Bank%20of%20Cyprus.jpg

Why I Am Not a CPAC Conservative

Robert Spencer, frontpagemag.com

just last week, after my website www.jihadwatch.org overwhelmingly won a vote for CPAC’s “People’s Choice Blog Award,” John Hawkins of Right Wing News (whether on his own initiative, as he now claims, or as the errand boy of shadowy and unnamed higher-ups, as he initially told me over the phone) told me that I was not to speak about the Muslim Brotherhood ties of Norquist and Khan when I received the award.

Comment:

CPAC is getting a glow that they don't deserve. Say a rising star like Dr. Benjamin Carson, addresses CPAC. Does that mean that Carson is somehow compromised? I'm not sure. But CPAC is compromised and any association with them is questionable.

Nevertheless, when somebody says the right things, it should be noted as such.

Update:

It should be noted, that just before his death, Breitbart addressed CPAC.

Note:

Pam Geller and Spencer ( referenced above) were not invited to CPAC. This led to some posts that I covered here that show that there's some explaining to do about that. Anyway, I did a little checking on him and found that Spencer collaborated on a book with Geller. Obviously, I didn't read the book. The book does have stuff that I've written about here, like Obama's War on America. I've already reviewed Obama's background before the election in 2008. See my book reviews in the left sidebar, near the bottom of the page.

Anyway, I considered buying the book to see what's there, but it looks like I've already written about it! I thought that I would put this note up just so that it would be clear that I'm not just parroting somebody's book.

How we are drifting towards an Orwellian America

1984 and Brave New World are two sides of the same dystopian coin. This article shows how those conceptual frameworks of a dystopian future are working together to produce a totalitarian state.

Published on Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com)

An Orwellian America

By Tyler Durden

Created 03/15/2013 - 20:25

The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is clearly sliding toward unavoidable bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley's feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are transitioning from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled. We are one crisis away from a police state. All the powers are in place. Someone will flip the switch. Whether a Cyber Attack, escalating Currency War tensions or a 'terrorist' attack by indebted college youth, it is only a matter of time and circumstance... We are one crisis away from a police state. All the powers are in place. Someone will flip the switch. Whether a Cyber Attack, escalating Currency War tensions or a 'terrorist' attack by indebted college youth, it is only a matter of time and circumstance.

Source URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-15/orwellian-america

Carson: Obama Trying to ‘Destroy the Country’

National Review

“Let’s say somebody were [in the White House] and they wanted to destroy this nation,” Carson postulated in remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “I would create division among the people, encourage a culture of ridicule for basic morality and the principles that made and sustained the country, undermine the financial stability of the nation, and weaken and destroy the military. It appears coincidentally that those are the very things that are happening right now.”

Full speech here:

Good stuff.

Housekeeping the blog today

This is a lot of work.

What I did was to aggregate my series by putting links to them in the right sidebar.

But the posts themselves weren't particularly good at linking to the next in the series, so I had to put in a lot of updates in each post so that they would. Now the series can be read by clicking on the link on the sidebar, and then clicking on the next in the series link now at the end of each of those posts in an update section.

Hopefully, this will aid in the goal in making the blog an easy resource to access. There's a lot of stuff here in this blog which now has over 5000 posts.

As you may have noticed, there are category labels which aid in readability. But as the blog grows, these get to be rather large in their own right. This should help make the blog easier to access.

President Obama: There Is No Debt Crisis

President Obama: There Is No Debt Crisis: There has been no shortage of dire warnings about the mounting US national debt, but President Obama is now offering a different assessment: no big deal. “We don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt,” President Obama said in an exclusive interview with George...[ emphasis added]

Was it a big deal when Bush was president? It was a big deal then, but not now? What happened to change his mind?

For those who say that Obama didn't say "problem" but "crisis", there's Conyers out there saying that it is no problem for his party. For the Democrats, it's no problem. For Obama, it's no crisis. A difference with no distinction, I'd say.

Let's say that all nations in the world are worse off than we are. Then maybe, there's no crisis. But what if not all countries are experiencing debt problems. What then? It means that this country has a problem related to debt. Does China have a debt problem? If China doesn't have a debt problem, and we do, I'd say that's a problem.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Ace of Spades Blog wins award at CPAC---yawn.

Okay, they win an award. But sometimes I wonder about those guys.

There this that makes my antenna go up:

It's one thing to oppose gay marriage and whatever homosexual activists are pushing and then there's just plain old gay hate. And Cliff Kincaid of AIM sure seems to have a lot of energy when it comes to hating the gheys and wanting to root them out of the conservative movement.

Comment:

Sorry. I can't agree with the Ace post here. This is just a matter of fact post that he is pointing to which says the following:

But the fate of a political party is not only what is in jeopardy. Historian Paul Johnson knows something about why nations fail, and he says one reason is the acceptance of homosexuality.

It's only the truth, you Acer's. Acceptance of homosexuality will cause a nation TO FAIL. There's no getting around this fact. Expression of this fact does not equate with hatred. Sorry. Buying into the left's premises isn't conservatism. They are already winning when conservatives are echoing their memes.

CPAC is allowing their leadership to be infiltrated by Islamist sympathizers, for Christ sake. Really, a true conservative today may not have a home anymore. If CPAC is questionable, who can you trust?

There is betrayal and evil everywhere, and I do mean everywhere.

WashPost: Insurers warn of sticker shock due to health care law's new taxes, requirements as it expands

This page was sent to you by: yours truly

Message from sender: The young folk who voted for Obama get rewarded with a big premium hike.

Insurers warn of sticker shock due to health care law's new taxes, requirements as it expands

By Associated Press

Some Americans could see their insurance bills double next year as the health care overhaul law expands coverage to millions of people.

Pentagon to beef up missile defense in response to North Korean threat, sources say

Free Republic

The Pentagon is beefing up the nation’s missile defense in the wake of provocative nuclear threats from North Korea...An Obama administration official tells Fox News that...“anyone who suggests we should have stayed the course” with the Bush administration’s plan is engaging in “Monday morning quarterbacking.”

Comment:

LOL. This administration and its leader are so infested with psychological projection that it is sometime breathtaking to behold. Here is Obama's Administration reversing itself and accuses others of Monday morning quarterbacking. Unbelievable. That's precisely what this official has just done---Monday morning quarterbacking. Now the administration is scrambling to do what they should have been doing all along. If you point that out, you are Monday morning quarterbacking.

By the way, Chrissy Matthews wonders how anybody could elect Ted Cruz. I've been wondering myself how a whole country could elect and re-elect Barack Hussein Obama.

A little more about the new blog

It's going to be pretty much like this one. It won't be an exact copy of it. There will be some differences.

There's something there that may be helpful in setting up a way to highlight series of posts. For example, there was a series of posts that discussed terraforming asteroids. I think that may be an interesting way to peruse items of interest. Some of these posts on that subject were popular enough to be included in the best of category. Currently, you can access them on this blog through the category label cloud on the left sidebar. But there are so many categories that some of the interesting ones may get overlooked.

In a blog this big, with over 5000 posts, there's a lot of stuff to wade through. A feature like this will be helpful in exploring the blog even better than ever.

It was a goal to make this blog a resource. With these menus, I think I can make it an even better resource than what the Blogger interface allows.

Update:

This may be a tougher nut to crack than I thought. Well, I can always emulate what I have already done on this blog. sigh

Update:

I succeeded in getting the menu to work on the sidebar. But there's a couple problems here that don't look like they can be solved.

The Blog importer will only go to July last year. That means older series cannot be imported to the new blog.
Getting the links straightened out will be a big headache. As a matter of fact, all internal links will point back to this blog, which means that it has to stay online, or the links will be broken. Otherwise, I will have to change all links to be internal to the new blog, which will be a headache beyond belief.

Not everything is perfect with the move. There are a few features that I will miss on Blogger. But this blog will stay here as long as Blogger is here.

85 Year Old Compares Obama to Hitler

victoriajacksonshow

The author of this article lives in South Dakota and is very active in attempting to maintain our freedom. I encourage everybody to read this article and pass it along. I see so many parallels in this country; are we going to sit by and watch it happen? Spread the word; also contact your congressional reps; vote them out if they don’t do what they should. If you don’t want to be bothered, then you’re part of the problem!

I'm no friend of Obama, but I watched this video, and the comparisons to Obama are not direct. There are eerie similarities. End of prayer in schools, nationalization of school curriculum, gun confiscation, de-legimitization of the church, certain abortions, euthanasia, nationalized health care, and on and on. Now, all of this isn't directly comparable to Obama, but he fits the mold, so to speak.

This video is a very stark warning. But I suppose it is a boil the frog type situation. We've been losing our liberty at a much slower pace. It took Hitler five years, she said. Our government has been at it for much longer, but it is going on, make no mistake about that.

CNN Exclusive: One conservative's dramatic reversal on gay marriage

This may bring a lot of schadenfreude to some people. It is really rather sad. That puts me in the minority of course. But that doesn't matter to me. Being popular doesn't make you right.

By the way, I emailed this to my blog and this is how it came back. The grey area is my comment, which is included in the email.

* Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.

This is rather disturbing that a conservative could have a "change of heart" over something like this.

Click the following to access the sent link:

CNN Exclusive: One conservative's dramatic reversal on gay marriage - CNN.com*


Get your EMAIL THIS Browser Button and use it to email content from any Web site. Click here for more information.

*This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/15/politics/portman-gay-marriage/?hpt=hp_c1

Update:

Perusing the comments section of Free Republic, which is where I got the link to this CNN article, I note that some don't believe that Portman was a conservative anyway. Even if he was a true conservative, this shows that it wasn't very deep nor committed.

Also, his state supported traditional marriage 2 to 1.

He should get a primary challenge and get his leftist ass out.

Gun grabbers don't want you to get suspicious

It could never happen here …

paraphrasing as the site won't allow me to quote directly:

They say that it is unthinkable that citizens would ever have to do that here. To suggest otherwise is the product of conspiracy mongering. Don't compare Obama with Hitler, they say. But the US government is going rogue. It violates the Constitution repeatedly. The universities are teaching doctrines that are corrupting the young with anti-traditional thinking. This is what threatens to end the type of moral and ethical system necessary for American style liberty. No one is comparing Obama with Hitler ( Except someone like me. This is an unnecessary equivocation. Obama is like Hitler. He studied Hitler, in my opinion, and is emulating him.) History is repeating itself.

You have to read Shirer's book. It shows how people can get sucked up into something that they can't do anything about later because it is too late.

The Wind Cries Mary Guitar Lesson Pt.1 - Jimi Hendrix

I wish sometimes that I was about 40 years younger and have the resources of the internet at my disposal. When I was a kid, I spent hours practicing on a guitar and never learned all that much. I got my info from books, but those really didn't help nearly as much as a video like this would have.

This is a pretty comprehensive study of the song. If you stick with it, you could probably play the whole song from start to finish.

I don't have time for this, sadly.

Expanding upon the gas gun concept as space propulsion

This piece warrants a speculation alert.

This idea came to me as I was listening John S. Lewis talk about asteroid exploitation. What he said gave me an idea to put a Hunter gas gun on an asteroid and use it to propel the asteroid to wherever you wanted to put it. As reaction mass, you would use the asteroid itself.

Now, it isn't exactly desirable to use all of the good stuff in an asteroid to get it to where you want to go. For example, if an asteroid has 30% water, you'd rather not use that water for propulsion. No, it would be far better to take the less desirable stuff and shoot it out of this gas gun and that would be your reaction mass. You can process the asteroid while using its waste as propellant. How about those apples?

The gas gun need not be so big, as you are not trying to get a large mass to exit the Earth's deep gravity well.

It could actually be no bigger than an artillery piece. For example, Hunter's gas gun outfit proposed to build a small gas gun as a proof of concept. It would put a smaller amount of mass into LEO. I think it was about a hundred pounds. This gas gun was much smaller than the one that he proposed to use for a commercial venture to put larger payloads into orbit.

The size of the gun for this purpose of moving asteroids could be much smaller because you could use much smaller projectiles. Let's say a few pounds apiece.

How much thrust could you get from that? The calculations would have to be guessed by moi, so take it all with a grain of salt.

Okay. Let's get to basics here. Force equals mass times acceleration comes to mind. I need help here, so I consulted a website. Let's calculate kinetic energy as one of the four ways of calculating joules. If you have 1 kg mass and you accelerate it 10 meters and it takes one tenth of a second to get to the end of the muzzle ( a guess because I don't know what the actual velocity would be), then it velocity would be 10 divided 1/10 meters sec or 100 meters sec. Or if it takes only 1 hundredth of a sec, then it would be 1 km sec. One thousandth of a second would make it 10 km/sec. The 10 km sec velocity would be near the limit that the gas gun could make a projectile go. You may need a longer barrel to attain that velocity.

Anyway, from there we could calculate joules, or energy expended: You multiply 10000 m/sec by itself giving 100,000,000 times the mass of 10 kg which gives 1,000,000,000 . Then divide by 2 giving joules. In this case that 500 million joules, or 500 mega joules. Lots of energy there. Maybe we don't need so much. The recoil from such a massive outburst could shatter the asteroid. Or anything else for that matter.

You could make the projectile smaller and the length of barrel shorter for a slower velocity. You could also use less energy to heat the hydrogen which would mean a slower muzzle velocity. At any rate, you could play around with the thing and optimize the size of it in order to get the amount of thrust you want.

Maybe a relatively small gun could fire out small waste projectiles as your reaction mass. This could propel you where you want to go. The hydrogen could be recycled ( as much as is practical ), and you would only expend the stuff that you don't want. By the time you get to your destination, you would have a partially or wholly processed asteroid.

Pretty neat, huh?

Update:

As a comparison, take the muzzle velocity of an AR-15, which is nearly 1 km/sec ( 1000 meters). It fires cartridges which are 5 grams. ( .005 kg ). The barrel length is about half a meter.

So multiply 1000 times itself giving 1 million. Multiply 1000000 times .005 giving 5000. Now divide by two giving 2500 joules. The fully automatic AR-15 can fire 800 rounds per minute or 13 rounds a sec. That gives approx 33k joules of power per sec.

Now, if you convert to that to a Hunter gas gun, what have you got?

The hydrogen gas gun could accelerate faster than 1 km/sec. Using the same size barrel and cartridge size, you may be able to get a lot more out of the gun than this. But could you save the hydrogen? Probably not.

You'd have to feed the hydrogen in constantly, which may be a problem.

You could make them fire like a cartridge, releasing the hydrogen while in the barrel. The hydrogen expands and accelerates the cartridge.

I suppose that it would take a lot of experimentation in order to optimize something like this and make it a practical device.

Update:

I'm going to make a series out of this. I like the concept. Consider this part 2 because the original idea began with the post referenced at the beginning of this post. That will be part 1.

Update:

Oops! Almost forgot this link. This will go on the next post.

The Most Persistent Economic Fallacy of All Time!

On the Shoulders of Giants blog via Instapundit

By the way, I was thinking about the phrase "on the shoulders of giants". My thought was that people today think they are smarter than the people in the past because of all the advances that have occurred. But that is bass ackward. Actually, the people of today have only inherited the good things, and aren't adding to them like they should. We are standing on the shoulders of giants, but that doesn't make us any taller ourselves.

We are squandering our inheritance.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Changing sun, changing climate

Quote:

Incidentally, but importantly, BEST's own data also clearly invalidate the alternative hypothesis that CO2 is the most important cause of observed temperature changes across the USA.

In a nutshell, climate is always changing and it is the sun wot does it.

Comment:

If CO² doesn't do it, but the sun does do it, then we ought to tax the sun instead of CO² .

Cognitive Dissonance Of The Day: "Don't Be Depressed", Just Ignore Reality

Zero Hedge

Hmm. Could it be that they're saying "Don't Worry, Be Happy"?

[Shared Post] Let's try this again

Let's try this again
http://www.bootsandoil.com/rocket/lets-try-this-again/

I disabled the link, but I tested it and it works. Success.

Update:

What this all means is that I now have a way to post on the new blog and share it here. That way, you can still see that I am blogging, but the main part of the story will be on the new blog. I may start doing this soon.

Barnhardt is not pleased with this new Pope

I've tried to get a feel for the character of the new Pope, but the information on him is pretty vague.

Now Barnhardt is a Catholic and she's very traditionalist about it. This new guy isn't like that at all, and that's what's gotten her upset.

It does look like it fits a pattern. Western Civilization just keeps "Slouching towards Gomorrah". This new Pope fits right in with that pattern.

Not everybody agrees, of course. Dick Morris has put up a couple of "good news" videos. Yes, not everything is bad, but the vitals aren't so good. The trends are worse.

Melanie Sturm: Think Again

Discerning frack from fiction: what's relevant

Anti-frackers should learn this Keynesian lesson: “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions.” What's irrefutably relevant is that fracking has succeeded where renewable-energy subsidies, government stimulus and climate treaties have failed, potentially enabling cheap American energy to eventually offset China's cheap labor advantage.

Not for long if there's no molten salt reactors. China's developing those and they're going to be cheaper than coal. Fracking's is frickin' good thing, but it won't be a permanent solution.

Inflation Targeting Revisited

Townhall.com ^ | March 14, 2013 | Mike Shedlock via Free Republic

Simple Solution (Easier Said than Done)

Conceptually, the way to eliminate the problem is simple: abolish the Fed and get rid of fractional reserve lending.

In practice, the idea is easier said than done, because the wealthy are in control of the system and they are the ones who benefit from inflation.

Yeah, I criticized fraction reserve banking. He says the rich and the bankers have the advantage during inflation.

It is much more fashionable to raise taxes, but that is easily side stepped. Those who keep pushing that message are also the ones who benefit from higher taxes.

If we can stop losing the messaging wars, and if we can actually elect people who will address the problems, there may be a chance.

GOP may subpoena Benghazi survivors - The Hill's Global Affairs

GOP may subpoena Benghazi survivors - The Hill's Global Affairs

Found this one at the bottom of the screen. Roubini: Bubble is bigger this time around.

A Wireless Brain-Computer Interface May One Day Help People with Mobility Problems | MIT Technology Review

A Wireless Brain-Computer Interface May One Day Help People with Mobility Problems | MIT Technology Review

You can control movements with your thoughts. I wonder if it would be useful in replacing the blue pill.

Boots and Oil Blog addthis button

Boots and Oil Blog | Experimenting with addthis button.

Not exactly working like I want.

One of these marathon debugging sessions. I want to add sharing buttons, but it won't cooperate. So, I added this addthis button, but it includes the whole danged page. I didn't anticipate that.

Gabby Giffords' Husband Buys an AR-15 and then Makes Up a Bullshit Story About Why He Did It

Ace

Ace shows why Mark Kelly is lying. Quite persuasive.

I put this up because I think it shows that even Peace and Gaia cannot long exist without some kind of morality. Here's this guy following the Peace and Gaia line, and he's busted. Now he lies about it in order to cover up his "sin".

He didn't buy the gun to support Peace and Gaia, you see. Now, he has to lie about it. How does that serve Peace and Gaia?

But if you give up your brain to the Postmodernists, you won't even think about that.

Did Venezuela's Chavez nudge Christ to pick South American pope?

yahoo.com

"We know that our commander ascended to the heights and is face-to-face with Christ," Maduro said at a Caracas book fair. "Something influenced the choice of a South American pope, someone new arrived at Christ's side and said to him: 'Well, it seems to us South America's time has come.'"

Reverend Jim Jones pretended to be a Christian, but admitted that he was an atheist. He also admired communism. This admiration of leftists for Christianity is a ruse. Eventually, it all leads back to communism.

If Chavez lived long enough, it would have look more and more like Castro's Cuba.

Nobody should trust what politicians say, anyway.

therightscoop: MUST LISTEN: Mark Levin Show caller, business owner, says Obamacare destroying his business

The costs of "free" healthcare. The costs of big government.

Why Anti-Fracking Environmentalists Are Holding Back the U.S.

John Stossel, Reason.com

Excerpts:

Stopping fracking is the latest cause of the silly people.
The real story on fracking, say scientists, is that the risks are small and the rewards immense.
Some won't be happy unless we go back to what we did before industrialization: burn lots of trees and die young.
Nothing is completely risk-free...But those risks are manageable. They are also far preferable to the risk of paying more for energy
Good things happen if the silly people can't convince all politicians to ban progress.

The silly people are probably postmodern in their thinking. Give up your mind to the collective! All power to the Soviet! It may be silly, but it is also dangerous.

Morality, who needs it?

It may well turn out to be that we all do. How so? It is the glue that keeps us all together.
Without that glue, society will fall apart.

Everybody has to observe it. There has to be consequences for the individuals that
try to exempt themselves from it. If there's no consequences, if there's no accountability,
nobody will observe it. Or perhaps some, but it won't be enough to prevent collapse.

One of the more fundamental reactions of people is reciprocity. If I do something for
you, and you don't reciprocate, that will result in no more favors. And vice versa, of
course. There's a give and take to human relations. You can't always be on the take,
and you can't always be expected to give. When there's an absense of this give
and take, cohesiveness of a community will break down.

Also one of the more fundamental reactions of people is incentive. If there's an
incentive, people will take advantage of it. That's the wages of sin, you see. The
incentive is to sin, because there are advantages to it. But there are also costs.
It is said that the wages of sin is death. You don't believe that? It is only
because it hasn't caught up to you yet. But it does eventually.

Just now, it occurs to me that incentive is a favorite word of conservatives. It
is kind of the same logic as mentioned above. For someone who's morality is
tied up into equality, to have an incentive means to sin according to that morality.
But the same morality that says it is wrong to get ahead is the same morality
that favors some sympathy for the devils who break the traditional laws. Morality
eventually makes its way into politics. You would expect this, since it affects
everybody.

Then you've got the people who doubt that technological progress is a good thing.
They believe that it ruins the Earth on which we live. It leads to new and terrifying
weapons of war. Their god is the Gaia and Peace. Thus, to have incentives in order
to produce economic growth and technological advances is a sin in itself to them. To
follow that morality will also have its costs. Little thought is given to the benefits
of economic and technological progress, no thought is given to the costs of its
banishment.

That leads to the cost and benefit analysis of morality. It can be analyzed on the
individual level as well as the societal level. The individual may cheat on the
dominant morality, but not too many of those can be allowed. That means there
has to be an enforcement mechanism. That's a cost of having a morality in the
first place.

There's a need for morality, which but there's more than one kind. You have to
decide upon which kind of morality will be your guide. The same is true for the
individual as well as the society at large. You may not like the costs of the
dominant morality, but there are benefits too.

The dominant morality in the West is still Judeo-Christianity and capitalism, but it
is becoming more and more secular, and Gaia and Peace.

That will have its costs if it becomes the dominant morality. Maybe you don't
make the most advanced weapons of war, but you also lose your economic
strength and independence, as other societies push past you. Gaia and Peace
doesn't dominate, but gets dominated. Gaia and Peace is not going to be
observed by everybody, you see. There's an incentive to not observe it, as
it exists with all morality. That is, without a big war, Gaia and Peace cannot
be imposed upon everybody. But that violates Gaia and Peace, you see.

Obviously, I favor economic and technological progress. I think Peace can
be achieved if the world can avoid war long enough that prosperity can be
achieved for all peoples. It will take more than just what this world can
offer to achieve that kind of prosperity, which is why I favor Space Colonization.

I think all of this can be achieved without blowing ourselves up first, but that is
the risk you take. Gaia and Peace will lead to no technological progress and
certain doom from the asteroids at some point in the future. There will be no
technology to stop it.

As for Judeo-Christian morality, I think that is better too. For it leads to
the conditions in which capitalism can thrive. Without it, people will cheat in
such a way that it will undermine the society to such a degree that it will collapse.

We in the West need to make up our minds one way or another.

There's a new Pope. I don't see that as a big change toward secularism, nor
towards Gaia and Peace. It is pretty much status quo as far as I can see.

For some, that is bad news. For others, it is good. We shall see.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

A New Molten-Salt Reactor Could Halve the Cost of Nuclear Power | MIT Technology Review

Transatomic Power, an MIT spinoff, is developing a nuclear reactor that it estimates will cut the overall cost of a nuclear power plant in half. It’s an updated molten-salt reactor, a type that’s highly resistant to meltdowns. Molten-salt reactors were demonstrated in the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Lab
Transatomic also modified the original molten-salt design to allow it to run on nuclear waste.
A conventional reactor produces about 20 metric tons of high-level waste a year, and that material needs to be stored for 100,000 years. The 500-megawatt Transatomic reactor will produce only four kilograms of such waste a year, along with 250 kilograms of waste that has to be stored for a few hundred years. [ emphasis added]
Bringing the new reactor to market will be challenging. Although the basic idea of a molten-salt reactor has been demonstrated, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s certification process is set up around light-water reactors. The company will need the NRC to establish new regulations, especially since the commission must sign off on the idea of using less steel and concrete if the design’s safety features are to lead to real savings.[ emphasis added]

You can see the benefits. So, why won't it be implemented? Red tape. Most likely, the regulators will listen to the incumbents in the industry and refuse to alter the regulations that would allow for the new design to reap the obvious benefits.

Next Big Future: LPP Dense Plasma Focus Fusion Peak Output Beams at...

Next Big Future: LPP Dense Plasma Focus Fusion Peak Output Beams at...: The ion beam produced by a plasma focus device (LPP nuclear fusion project) will be the primary means of getting electric power out of the d...

Stomach-twisting fuel storage for gas-powered cars - tech - 07 March 2013 - New Scientist

In place of one large, high-pressure tank there are multiple banks of thin, pressurised metal tubes that can be bent and distributed throughout the car, hugging the inside of the wheel arches, roof supports and front wings.

That would be an interesting way to convert gas powered cars to natural gas powered cars.

Joe Jackson - Steppin' Out

Listening to Space Show broadcast replays

Currently listening to John Hunter, who was on the show on Feb 18 this year.

Brings everybody up to date on what he's doing. Hunter was working on the gas gun concept, but he's doing so other stuff for now.

Other broadcasts I downloaded included John S. Lewis of Mining the Sky, John Powell of JP Aerospace and some others.

Update:

Finished Hunter's rebroadcast, now listening to John S. Lewis.

Gave me an idea of using Hunter's gas gun as a propulsion device on a asteroid using the asteroid's own materials. The solids that are least usable can be used as propellant, keeping the hydrogen.

Update:

Now I am listening to Edmund Storms, who is well-known to those who follow cold fusion. My thoughts on that is that our problem is systemic with respect to developing new ideas like this. Our prognosis is not good because of this. That's what's been driving my pessimism lately.

We have a system that follows self-interest to an extreme. Governments and other large organizations pretend to serve the public interest, but they don't really.

Update:

Part 1 of a series, Part 2 is here.

Want to Reduce the Debt? Cut the Billions a Year In Nuclear Subsidies

Zero Hedge

Excerpts:

We’ve previously documented that even top nuclear executives admit that nuclear energy is expensive, and only survives due to massive government subsidies.
federal subsidies now worth up to $13 billion a plant — roughly how much it now costs to build one
the costs of nuclear power are shared by the public but the profits are enjoyed privately. [crony capitalism, anyone?]
loan guarantees covering 50 percent of the cost of building 8,400 Megawatts of new nuclear power..The Congressional Research Service estimated that these loan guarantees alone would cost taxpayers $14 to $16 billion. The Congressional Budget Office believes “the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high — well above 50 percent...The key factor accounting for the risk is that we expect that the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs

Comment:

I don't see anything here that supports the development of molten-salt reactors. It therefore looks like they are spending all of this money for old technology that has a risk of failure that is too high and too costly.

But not all of the subsidies are that bad, viz

Generation IV program to develop new reactor designs
Research and development of radioactive waste reprocessing and transmutation technologies
Investment in human resources and infrastructure in the nuclear sciences and engineering fields through fellowships and visiting scientist programs; student training programs; collaborative research with industry, national laboratories, and universities; upgrading and sharing of research reactors; and technical assistance

That's the best part of the spending, but this article criticizes even that. This is an anti-nuke piece, and it is more on than off, but the part that is off is unfortunate. It isn't as if the anti-nukes are always wrong, it is that they really don't address the problem---that solid fuel, water-cooled reactors are the problem and that the nuclear industry doesn't want to modernize away from these technologies because it isn't to their advantage.

Update:

I should have included the following closing sentence to this anti-nuke screed

The bottom line is that if we want to reduce the debt, we should stop all nuclear subsidies.

Wrong. We need to develop the LFTR. It will not need the kind of subsidies mentioned, and will be cheaper than coal. But it needs some help in getting started.

With Twinkies Set To Return, Ebay "Collectible" Buyers Get Harsh Lesson In US Bankruptcy Law

Zero Hedge

as NBC News reports that the new owners of the Hostess Brand "look forward to having America's favorite snacks back on the shelf by this summer."

Twinkies coming back? Oh, boy.

NOTE:

Late start this morning. Want to take a different tack, but don't know where to go. Twinkie news as good as any, I suppose.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Piers Morgan: We All Need Some Nannying, Sometimes

Ace of Spades

This world we used to live in, where people believed passionately in things and argued privately that others should believe these things too? Yeah, that world was for the birds. The real way to Show You're Right is to get a loathsome status to encode your opinion into law.

Passing An Law is now the ideological equivalent of Getting Married. Until you Pass An Law, you're just living in sin. You haven't sanctified your relationship with an idea. There is no state recognition of your relationship with the idea.

Yeah. Postmodernism at work here. If there's no truth, then there must be an authority that tells us what is right. That means the authority or state. People give up their minds to the state, you see. You can't think for yourselves. It must be verified up above. Only then do we know if it is true or not.

Disasters are like roaches, you see one, and there's a lot more coming

Sorry about the light posting. I spent a lot of time reading over some history. For some reason, the Battle of Manzikert stuck my fancy, so I started reading about it. I remember it from my history lessons. It was the beginning of the end for the Byzantine Empire.

I was struck by the internal weakness of the Empire. That's what led to the defeat and what came after defeat was even worse than the defeat itself---civil war.

Fast forwarding to modern times, I suspect that some Republicans are licking their chops in anticipation of future distress in this country owing to the foolish policies of this Obama regime. If you look at what happened to Byzantium, you may want to re-think that. A disaster is just the beginning of new disasters.

Another example of this is Japan. After the tsunami and disaster at Fukushima nuke plant, they decide to shut down their nuclear power plants. Now that's bad enough, but there's more. The next disaster is that they are now debasing their currency. You see? One disaster follows another. Tsunami, plant closings, and now currency debasement. There is also talk of war.

If you look at it, the current line of disasters in the US probably arose from the some time in the past. When? Could it have been the assassination of President Kennedy? That's because Johnson starts the Vietnam War, which brings Nixon, which brings Watergate. Watergate brings Carter, who brings Reagan.

Reagan a disaster? Maybe. He started the process of mega budget deficits. His was a small disaster masquerading as a success. It didn't have to be a disaster, but creating big deficits in DC is like giving whiskey to an Injun. Nixon was the biggest disaster, created by Johnson and Vietnam. Nixon ended the gold standard. Nixon was a bigger disaster than Carter, who had his hostage crisis and foolish policies on energy. But you can survive a Carter. But where Nixon really screwed up worst was with molten salt reactors. The petro dollar was created during Nixon's era. Why choose the petrodollar when you can make your own energy with nuclear power? This disaster opened us up to terrorism and the coming hyperinflation.

Every disaster seems to bring another disastrous response. The response to 9-11 was the invasion of Iraq. Which brings Obama. Obama is giving us Cloward Piven, which will bring down the entire financial house. Who knows what will come after that.

'Cash for Clunkers' Killed Jobs, Hurt the Environment

I wanted to write a piece about common sense. It seems that there was somebody who posted something to the effect that a liberal guy somewhere ridiculed the concept of common sense. Actually took pride in not having any common sense. I don't have that link, sorry. Can't find it either, sorry again.

So, I researched such concepts as "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and "supply and demand". Incidentally, the law of supply and demand predicts that health care prices will go up. It was promised to be the opposite. After all, it is called the "Affordable Care Act". Common sense would tell you, if you considered common sense to be a real thing, that this price increase is going to happen. That's because 30 million new entrants into the health care market will have to vie for the supply that will essentially remain the same. More demand and the same supply equals higher prices. So much for affordability.

No, the left is trying to sell the idea that there really is a free lunch, or that there's nothing to this concept of common sense. I'd say the latter is postmodern philosophy. For, if there's no truth, say the postmodernists, then there's no common sense either. No common sense means no "law of supply and demand". No such thing as a "law of supply and demand" means free healthcare for all! Yay! Or, if that's not the case, then the rich will pay for it. But that contradicts the "no such thing as a free lunch" postulate and we are all back at square one. Never mind! For if the rich pay for it, this will have consequences of some kind that will filter back to you, and you will have to pay one way or another.

We can examine recent history with this administration, with all their free lunches. There was the "cash for clunkers" program for one. It turns out to have had hidden costs. What a revelation! It was all supposed to be a "win-win-win" kind of a deal. Turns out, it wasn't all without cost. It sent the prices of cars up, since the supply of good used cars went down. Perfectly serviceable used cars were taken out of the system for this so-called win-win-win proposition. The law of supply and demand kicked in, and voila! Higher used car prices. I know that is true since I bought a used van almost a couple years ago. Before that I sold my own used truck for a cheaper price than I should have. I failed to take note of the "cash for clunkers" had done to the market. I sold too cheap. It cost me real money in that exchange. It should not have, and it is my fault. But that doesn't make "cash for clunkers" blameless.

The reason I wanted to write about common sense is that I think there is a lot less of it these days. Maybe part of that is because the left has drilled it out of our brains and drilled in this postmodern philosophy. That enables them to more easily sell these foolish ideas of theirs, like 'cash for clunkers" and Obamacare.

It goes much further than these silly programs. We are heading for a crack-up because the left has too many people believing that you can spend and borrow your way to prosperity. The spending is being supported by deficit spending which would not be possible if the dollar's reserve status no longer existed. In order to protect the reserve status requires a force of arms which costs money, but this administration doesn't want to spend money on that. It also means spilling blood from time to time, but they don't want that either. Common sense requires that you consider the true costs of your choices, but the left's insistence upon believing in free lunches has them convinced that deficit spending can go on forever. Or, if even it can't, then they can tax the rich to pay for their schemes. But that has hidden costs too.

One way or another, reality will catch up to them, and by extension, us. That's common sense.

Where Have We Seen This Market Before?

minyanville.com

The stock market rally since the beginning of the year is seemingly relentless. Regardless of whether the market-related news is good or bad, stocks seem to fight their way higher day after day...perhaps stocks will simply blow through this resistance and break out to new highs. But given the widespread risks that continue to overhang the global economy and its financial markets, it is worthwhile to pay close attention to markets at these levels. And exploring what other opportunities may be currently presenting themselves beyond the stock market would be at a minimum prudent. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.[ emphasis added]

Comment:

What he's describing is a bubble. The Fed deliberately popped the bubble in 2000 and now it is deliberately blowing up a new one. Whereas, before, the Fed popped it, this time it may be popped by an external force.

It is symbolic, I believe, of this country's failure to govern itself properly. Asset bubbles are not a thing to be pursued, but to be avoided. Curious to me that the government should be pursuing a bubble. The fact that a symptom of distress is actually pursued as a solution to a problem is not a good sign for the future.

Blog status report

For the last several days, I've been inactive physically because of a foot problem. In those days, I've done more blogging than usual. One thing that I've noticed is this: the more posting I do, the more pageviews I get. It is gratifying to get a positive response like that. But there's a problem.

As I mentioned before, I'd like to monetize this blog at some point. Due to the fact that Blogger won't let me do that because they think I was cheating, I've been permanently banned from using Adwords. Adwords wouldn't have provided much income, but at least it would have been something.

Due to that, and the other failure, which is Amazon, I have yet to receive one thin dime from the blog. This can't go on forever, if I am to continue blogging.

Therefore, I set up a new blogging site, but that presents a problem, too. I've got to get people who are coming here to go to the new site. I wonder if that will even happen. I worry about that. It has been a long and painful process just to get the modest audience that I have now. To move risks having to start all over again. But I have to do this at some point. It is not working out at Blogger.

Anyway, I haven't made a decision about when and how I will conduct the move. Only that it will definitely occur at some point.

I'm thinking that it should be a gradual move. Currently, I have put up most of the posts here on the new blogging site. I haven't updated it in the past week, so it is about 1 week behind. But a mirror site is not the way I want to do it. At some point, I'll have to move on this. I haven't decided how and when.

Thanks for your support. I will update on this in the coming days.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Top 20 Artery-Cleansing Foods

Top 20 Artery-Cleansing Foods

Putting this up because I don't want to forget it.

Update: And this too.

How the Yuan Could Take the Dollar's Crown

cnbc.com

quote:

These measures taken by China would decrease the transaction costs for the country's importers and exporters says Dr Zha Xiaogang, a research fellow at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies. Speaking at a seminar in Bahrain in October, he said it would lessen China's reliance on the dollar and the big fluctuations that seriously affect its foreign trade and investment, including oil.

"The US monetary authorities are only responsible for its domestic concerns and ignore the possible spillover effects to the rest of the world," he said.

Comment:

It might be a good idea for the policy makers in DC to get their act together and soon. These trillion dollars deficits will no longer be possible in the future.

BBC: The goats with spider genes added

BBC ** The goats with spider genes added **

Genetically modified goats at a farm in the US are being farmed to produce large quantities of spider silk, one of the strongest known substances.

Comment:

I first saw this in an interview with Al Gore. It seemed pretty creepy to me, but the video allayed such fears. The milk contains the protein of the spider silk, but is normal in all other respects. Their young can feed on it, most likely. It isn't silk embedded in milk, just the protein, which can be separated out.

The goats look normal in all ways and the milk is normal, so it isn't so creepy after all.

Did the West Blink in Talks with Iran?

Via Meadia via Instapundit

Whether or not the author is correct in saying the West lost the game of diplomatic chicken in Kazakhstan, perceptions matter. It isn’t just about Israel. Washington’s approach to Iran seems to be making the Arab world nervous.

Comment:

The thought occurred to me that this could be the event that kills the US Dollar. That is, the nuclearization of Iran. Consider that Iran could threaten all of the region into joining their Iranian Bourse for pricing of oil in anything but US Dollars. That could be the end of the petrodollar with far-reaching ramifications.

This would be funny, if it weren't dead serious

Given my suspicion towards what the government is doing vis-a-vis the economy, the idea that bankers could be manipulating prices in their favor does not seem far-fetched at all. Read the caption. When I saw that one, I laughed out loud. Maybe that's what they call the "gallows laugh".

"This chart courtesy USfunds.com, Thompson Reuters, GFMS, WGC., shows that while central banks are trying to hold the gold price down, they are also buying gold while the price is low."

Why Batteries Are Energy Wasters (The greenies are lying)

Free Republic

Over the last three decades, I've worked as counsel for several clients in the mining, oil & gas and battery industries. Because of that experience, I've always understood that battery manufacturing is extremely energy intensive. After all, the entire value chain from mining and purifying metals through component fabrication and final assembly requires massive fossil fuel and electric power inputs. Until last week, however, I didn't truly understand the magnitude of the energy inputs required to make a battery.

Comment:

As with all forms of energy, look at the cost of the thing.

I'm interested in batteries for autos, but with reservations. The main reservation is that they are too heavy. However, batteries can be used in conjunction with fuel cells, which would complement the strengths of each. Throw in ultracapacitors for a complete package.

I couldn't read the entire article referenced at the freeper site because they want you to register at their site. Won't do that.

RealClearMarkets - February's Jobless Report Is Not Cause For Celebration

RealClearMarkets

America's working age population went up by 165,000 during February. Despite this, a net 130,000 people dropped out of the labor force, continuing the most worrisome trend of the Obama years. The number of people with full-time jobs fell by 212,000, while 382,000 Americans took part-time jobs, thus producing the reported 170,000 gain in total employment (which includes everyone who worked at all). "Full-time-equivalent" (FTE) jobs, which we can approximate as the number of full-time jobs plus the number of part-time jobs divided by two, fell by 21,000.

Comment:

The numbers make good headlines, but a deeper look shows it's not what it's hyped up to be.

A little nugget of gold

I was asked recently by a close relative what the heck was going on with precious metals. The best answer I could give was the theory given here on this blog---managing perceptions. That is, the government is making you think things are better than they actually are so as to increase confidence in the hopes that this will spur the economy into real performance.

Well, here's some more support for that idea. I mean, if 85 billion dollars a month of Fed greenback support isn't enough to convince you. Also, if you were wondering why gold doesn't go through the roof, here's a little nugget of info that may explain it on Kitco:

As I've said before, and will continue to say, until these guys go away, or go to jail. the paper trades, are dictating the price of Gold and other metals right now. When these guys aren't allowed to go short more ounces than has ever been minted, we'll see the true price of Gold again, that's dictated by supply and demand. [ emphasis added]

Well, yeah! I mean, if you can short more gold than exists, sure the price will be depressed. Why wouldn't it be? Makes sense to me. Makes sense that they aren't prosecuted. Instead, they get a wink from the powers-that-be. That helps the powers-that-be to manage the perceptions. If the price of gold went through the roof, that would be a problem for the perceptions. It would signal dollar weakness and inflation. We just can't have that bit of truth being let out of the bag, now can we?

I suppose this is all well known to traders, but I didn't know about it. Is that really true? Can they short stuff that doesn't even exist? It ought to be illegal, but this is the government for you.

As for the politicos, they don't seem to get how the government is playing this shell game. Or why.

The ironies of ironies is that the left depends upon the petrodollar to pay for all their spending. All the while, they are pulling their own rug right out from under themselves. And they call the GOP the stupid party.

Earth gets a rush of weekend asteroid visitors

Earth gets a rush of weekend asteroid visitors

One big enough to wipe out a city, it says.

Funny how lying is looked down upon, but rewarded so much

Another Instapundit link, this time about the secrets of good liars.

The thing that struck me about it all is that you really have to committed to being a good liar in order to be one. It takes preparation and real effort. This isn't something that just happens by accident.

This is reminiscent of what former Senator Bob Kerrey had to say of Bill Clinton when they competed for the Democratic nomination in 1992. He said of Clinton that he was a good liar, he was really good at it. And so Clinton won and served two terms. While president, he gets caught in a lie and not only avoids punishment, but is now admired and defended for his lying. So much reward for so much evil.

Lying is evil, you know. But in our world today, it is probably not considered so. Lying is only looked down upon if it is caught and if it is punished. But the real good liar is not punished, and so was the case with Clinton. The system seems to reward the really good liars and punish the not so good liars like Nixon. At least Nixon had the decency to sweat when he lied. Clinton never broke a sweat, for this he is admired.

The people who protected Clinton so much were really pissed at Bush's so-called lies. "Bush lied and people died." Of course, they are also silent about Obama's lies. Obama is so smooth and glib about it. Hillary says "what difference does it make" and everybody oohs and aahs. Nobody died in Watergate. People did die while Bush was in office, but was he really lying? Or was the accusation of a lie itself a lie? Even if Bush did lie, he could never be the liar that Clinton and Obama is. For that, they really hated him the most. He couldn't talk that well. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Says a lot about some of us that isn't good.

Tea Party as a Third Party

Glenn Reynolds says the GOP leadership appears to be doing just that--creating a third party. If that happens, so long GOP. They'll go the way of the Whigs.

On Breitbart, the word is that the GOP is walking back from the edge of the plank. At least for the time being.

Late this evening, Rep. McCarthy's representatives reached out to both Breitbart News and The Hill regarding the use of the Hastert rule in the House.

I suppose the threat really isn't credible enough. Would the Tea Party break off from the Republicans if the leadership started making deals on gun control and immigration without their support?

Why I don't blame low-information voters

Because I consider myself one.

Look, information is hard to come by. I get almost all my information from the internet. This means I have to look for it. It's like sifting through tons of ore to get at a few nuggets of gold. It's very time-consuming. Does a working stiff like me have time to do a thorough job of this? No. So, how can I blame anybody for not knowing stuff that the major media won't produce, and I have to go find for myself? You can't blame people for not having the time. The only reason I have time is that I like doing this stuff and its fun for me. But there's more to life than fun, you have to work too. I have to work for a living and I don't have time to do this all the time. Not that I would mind it if I could.

Blaming low-information voters is counter-productive. For one thing, that's telling them that they are lazy, or that they are stupid. Maybe many of them are indeed lazy. Maybe many of them are indeed stupid. But I'd like to think that there are plenty out there who would listen if you would just make the effort and provide them with good information. I know I would. That's why I'm out there looking for it. If enough of these people had the right kind of information, it could make a difference. So blaming them is not going to win them over. It will turn them off and they will definitely not listen.

So blaming people for not knowing what you know isn't going to help anything. Besides, you may not know as much as you think. Perhaps you should up your game a bit. Real leaders don't blame the public. Ronald Reagan didn't. In fact, Reagan pointed out that his opponents were the ones blaming the public. And he was right.

The media isn't going to inform. You may as well not add to the noise by blaming people for the noise level that already exists from the media. You have to demonstrate your superiority by providing them with something they aren't going to get from the media. That shouldn't be too hard. If people are smart, they'll see the value. The others? Well, they'll figure it out eventually when they see where the smart people are going and they'll fall into line.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Can Low-Information Voters Be Reached?

By Robert Ringer

Yes, but it will take guts. Even a well-reasoned argument loaded with facts and figures won't do it if there's no courage behind it.

Today I posted about the Jim Jones Cult and their mass suicide. It really wasn't suicide, it was forced suicide.

Anyway, the cult put on a great show for Congressman Ryan, and he made a speech about how favorably impressed he was with the place. However, somebody passed him a note saying he wanted to leave. The news of the note spread throughout the cult and that unraveled the Big Lie Jim Jones was spinning. Now, Jones was losing control and he knew it. Before Ryan could leave with some of the cult followers, he had some gunmen kill Ryan and some of the people who were leaving on the plane.

The point is that it took courage to oppose Jim Jones and his cult. That kind of courage will reach people.

It is wrong to blame people if you lack the courage to do what is necessary. Those who would be leaders need to have the courage to resist. Don't blame others for your lack of it.

ParaPundit: Women Miss Their Locked-Up Criminal Men

ParaPundit: Women Miss Their Locked-Up Criminal Men

Another link to consider: Chicks Have Been Digging Jerks For A Long Time

Maybe it is in the DNA of the human race to destroy itself. Anything good is hated, anything bad is loved.

All makes you wonder if the human race is worth worrying about.

In truth, the reason reason to worry about it is your own self-interest. But that would make too much sense.

Boy am I getting pessimistic.

More people working in 2007 than today

The economy still hasn't recovered from the recession, even after nearly 4 years of recovery. From the BLS, here's the evidence:

146.1 million working in 2007

143.5 million working today, need 2.6 million more working Americans to equal those working in 2007

If you bothered to notice, you'll see that the labor participation rate dropped again. The unemployment rate is lower because fewer people are working, not from actual job creation. We've got a long way to go just to get back where we were 6 years ago.

The year 2007 was about the time I knew there was going to be a recession. As I recall, the credit markets had seized up at just about that time.

I've written about what I think of the current situation. I consider it risky to be in paper assets. If the dollar crashes, you could be wiped out in a hurry before you can do anything about it. Even though it may not seem so at the moment, being in precious metals is a good idea. It will always retain some value.

The economy appears to be getting better, but looks can be deceiving. You have to dig deeper than the Dow and the unemployment rate. That's true especially if you are putting money on the line.

Grasshopper test is successful again

This time to 262 feet. SpaceX hopes to be hypersonic by the end of the year.

Video is accompanied by Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire. At the very end of the video, you can see a little man on the Grasshopper.

Japan Brings Food Inflation Down To 'Earth'

Zero Hedge

As CBS reports in this somewhat remarkably not The Onion clip, the highest delicacy among Japanese diners is now - dirt.

And I thought the Japanese were smart. Paying money to be served dirt ( yes, that's right dirt) is the height of folly. Reminds me of Keynesian Economics.

Diane Feinstein's rise to power

It is quite possible, in my opinion, that if it weren't for the Death Cult of Reverend Jim Jones, Feinstein may never have attained her high political station.

With that thought in mind, might one consider the strange story of Jim Jones? There is always something new to learn, and learn I did when I watched the following video.

Jim Jones next to last headquarters was in none other than San Francisco. Did you know that Jones sodomized male members of his cult? It's in the video. Also, Jones was about to be denounced by former members, so he decided that he had to leave. Many of the cult members who died had lived in the Bay Area and their deaths were keenly felt. The murders of Milk and Moscone occurred shortly after the Jonestown mass suicide. Jones had attempted to set up a type of utopia that drew so many of his followers into it like an insect in a spider's web.

Feinstein inherited Moscone's job as mayor. She may have lost except for some promises made to the gay community. The gays were angry because the assassin received a light sentence for murdering Milk, who was openly gay. She won a runoff election to a more conservative opponent. Her elective political career was fast tracked. She had lost mayoral elections twice before. She lost to Pete Wilson in a race for governor in 1990.

She gave a rather dramatic announcement of the Moscone and Milk assassinations. Maybe she was in the right place at the right time. Or maybe she just took advantage of the situation. Your call.

She has now introduced a draconian gun-control bill. The potential of this bill to do great damage cannot be underestimated. It's the wrong kind of bill at the wrong time. You have a charismatic leader in charge and a bill like this will leave us unprotected.

Watching the video of Jones shows you the great danger in this. People were herded into their mass deaths by armed guards. Armed guards killed Congressman Ryan at the airstrip. Why did they have guns and the rest did not? The people weren't allowed to leave. They weren't allowed to talk to each other.

The future of this country should not be put into hands of opportunistic politicians like Feinstein and Obama.

Does any of the preceding story seem familiar in any way with what is going on now on the national level? Watch the video and decide for yourself.

We Might be Muslim Today if....

Selwyn Duke, American Thinker.

Excerpts:

The year is 632 A.D., and Muslim hordes have set their sights on the Mideast and North Africa -- the old Christian world [ comment: Much of what is Muslim land today was once Christian lands, did you know that?]
After vanquishing much of Visigothic Iberia by 718, the Muslims cross the Pyrenees Mountains into Gaul (now France) and move northward. Now it is 732, and they are approaching Tours, a mere 126 miles from Paris. The Western world -- what's left of Christendom -- could very well be on its way to extinction.[ comment: Spain is conquered and held by Muslims for hundreds of years, did you know that? If they weren't stopped in modern day France, all of modern Europe would be Islamic. Did you know that?]
Byzantine emperor Alexius I in Constantinople knows that his realm is too weak to resist. What is he to do?[ comment: Byzantium was on its way to being conquered and was conquered just before Columbus set sail for America. Did you know that?]
In a rousing sermon in front of more than 650 clerics and Christian nobles, he appeals to Europeans to stop bickering amongst themselves and rally to the aid of their eastern brothers.
..And thus was born the 11th-century Hammer writ large: the Crusades. [ comment: You are taught by the Death Cult that the Crusades were evil. They were actually a defensive maneuver against the aggressive Islamic advance, which was to very nearly overrun all of Europe yet again. Did you know that?]

Comment:

People do not know their history. The Death Cult has seen to that. If people knew their history, they would have known the significance of the date September 11th.

It was on September 11 1683 that the conquering armies of Islam were met,held, and thrown back at the gates of Vienna.

Of course, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were preceded by an attack on the USS Cole on October 12th, 2000. You see the symbolism? The coincidences in the dates? This was no accident. The terrorists were sending a message. They intended to conquer as Islam had conquered in the past.

I noted the anti-Americanism that accompanied the attacks of 9-11. They practically accused George Bush of a Reichstag Fire, but that theory has a lot of holes. The actual Reichstag Fire preceded an election by just a few days. The attacks on 9-11 did not. It was not an inside job, it was what it appeared to be. An external attack by an enemy bent on conquest. But this is not what we were told by the Death Cult. The Death Cult and the far left are in agreement---they intend to conquer the West. They managed to convince a large number of people that there was something disreputable about defending America. They taught the people not to trust Bush and his approval ratings plummeted.

Now we have a President with an Islamic name who refused to come to the aid of Americans on September 11th. Do you not see the symbolism of this? The left has conquered this country's mind and has blinded it to the truth. Here is this man who sympathizes with America's mortal enemy and refuses to come to the aid of Americans who are being attacked on the same day that America itself was attacked in 2001. This date of the attack in Benghazi was no accident. Obama's failure to respond was no accident. When Obama attacked free speech in the UN, this too was no accident. He's at war with this country. The Death Cult has made sure that everyone is blinded to this reality.

Just as people do not know their history, they do not really know what is going on. The media is giving the people the mushroom treatment. If the people knew the truth, this would not be happening.

This is why the Death Cult wants your guns. They want to shut down free speech. They want to trample over the Constitution and establish tyranny. They want to see the US Dollar destroyed. They will not defend this country.

Now you know why the sequester is important and the failure to enforce it is a disaster in the making. The Death Cult is taking this country apart brick by brick.

And the Republicans won't stop it.

House GOP leaders blindsided by defections on spending vote - The Hill

Sixteen Republicans defected Wednesday in a vote on the rule governing consideration of a government-funding bill meant to prevent a government shutdown. The defections could have caused the rule to fail since most Democrats voted also voted against it.

Comment:

This news looks like the Republicans are taking on the role of the "straw man" yet again. They are setting themselves up to look like the bad guys who were forced into doing the right thing. It makes Obama look good and it means that the government will continue to grow without restraint. Bad news.